
A State of Fear
How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This is a book about fear. Fear of a virus. Fear of death. Fear of losing our jobs, our democracy, our human connections, our health and our minds. It's also about how the government weaponised our fear against us – supposedly in our best interests – until we were the most frightened country in Europe.
But why did the government deliberately frighten us, and how has this affected us as individuals and as a country? Who is involved in the decision-making that affects our lives? How are behavioural science and nudge theory being used to subliminally manipulate us? How does the media leverage fear? What are the real risks to our wellbeing?
Ahead of any official inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Laura Dodsworth explores all these questions and more, in a nuanced and thought-provoking discussion of an extraordinary year in British life and politics. With stories from members of the general public who were impacted by fear, anxiety and isolation, and revealing interviews with psychologists, politicians, scientists, lawyers, Whitehall advisers and journalists, A State of Fear calls for a more hopeful, transparent and effective democracy.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- About the Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Fright night
- 2. Fear spreads in the media like an airborne virus
- 3. Frightful headlines
- 4. Fear is a page of the government playbook
- 5. The business of fear and the unelected psychocrats
- 6. The SPI-B advisors
- 7. The tools of the trade
- 8. Controlled spontaneity and propaganda
- 9. Coercion
- 10. The metrics of fear
- 11. Counting the dead
- 12. The illusion of control
- 13. The climate of fear
- 14. Cults, conspiracy and psychic epidemics
- 15. Tyranny
- 16. Terrifying impacts
- 17. Why fear should not be weaponised
- 18. Happy endings are not written in the language of coercive control
- 19. Making sure it never happens again
- 20. The end, or is it a prequel?
- Appendix 1: Data
- Appendix 2: Lockdowns don’t work
- Appendix 3: Fight back against the nudge
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Index